Worry tightened like a knot; Yuna asked, “Master, aren’t we going too far?”
Lance waved it off like smoke in a breeze. “How could we? Even if we snubbed Velfor’s invitation, that Comprador Duke would find another way to hassle us.”
Unease pooled like cold water; Yuna shook her head. “That’s not what I mean. You didn’t have to kill Velfor’s two Earth Rank Knights, but you did. Shawan’s order could unravel like rotting rope.”
Irritation flared like a spark; Lance turned. “So you’re worried for Shawan’s people, afraid my choices will whip this place into a hornet’s nest?”
Yuna stood stubborn as a stone. “Am I wrong?”
He snorted, a dry sound like gravel. “Shawan kept the Republic’s traditions and swallowed its dregs like sludge.”
“Here, women are treated like men’s property, like goods tagged and tallied.”
“With a stain like that baked into the earth, you still fret over its people?”
Her voice cracked like thin glass. “What’s wrong with that?!”
His tone cooled like a winter wind. “You’re wrong, Yuna. Some are born under a curse like a shadowed star. They don’t deserve pity.”
“Unless a cleansing blaze burns the field to ash so shoots can sprout, they’ll stay hopeless, not worth saving.”
Tears slid like twin crystals down her cheeks; she wanted to answer, but words fluttered like trapped birds and wouldn’t fly.
Doubt pricked like frost; was she bound by needless kindness like silk turned to shackles?
Still, she cautioned, her voice a thin bell in fog. “If you get drunk on what you do and forget why, how are you different from that filthy Blood Clan?”
The words startled Lance like thunder under clear sky, and they angered the one inside him like a blade drawn, both because Yuna lacked the right to accuse, and because her thoughts were mist-soft and naive.
He moved to scold, the retort rising like heat.
But he saw her twin tracks of tears shine like dew, and felt sorrow ring true like iron, so the other in him yielded.
“Fine, fine, I’ll rein it in,” Lance sighed, the breath leaving like steam.
So they waited idle and calm, like stones in a slow river, in Shawan’s central city for half a month, until Celestial Spirit’s luxury liner sailed the sky.
“Unbelievable,” Yuna breathed, eyes wide as moons, as a behemoth that shouldn’t fly drifted down over Shawan Harbor like a silver whale.
“Yeah,” Lance said, voice flat as a still pond. Thirty years as an office worker on Earth had shown him planes on TV; even up close, he wouldn’t gape like a child at fireworks.
“So extravagant…” Shelika sighed, like wind over gilt, as a mere travel company flaunted wealth like a mountain of coins, proof of the Empire’s deep coffers.
It wasn’t just gilding; the scale and service swelled like a spring flood, beyond the ordinary banks.
Before the hull kissed the water, soldiers swept the crowds like brooms over scattered leaves.
From the landward roads, the Empire’s knightly orders rolled in like iron tide and seized the port, halting ship traffic like a clenched fist.
Imperial flags climbed the masts like crows on bare branches, and yellow smoke plumes rose like warning beacons, while cold magic-crystal lances glittered like winter icicles to warn off the curious.
Citizens paled, whispers flittering like sparrows. “Is their king here?!”
A legionary knight keeping order wore a complicated look like knotted rope. “No. Just a Celestial Spirit tour group.”
Shipowners jammed the council doors like driftwood at a narrow bend and grumbled, “Shawan’s the Kingdom’s second-largest port. And you lock it down for a tour group?!”
“Exactly,” an Imperial squad ‘happened’ to pass, their boots drumming like hail. A Celestial Race knight flipped his magic-crystal spear with lazy ease and pinned a rude shipowner to the wooden wall like a moth.
Silence fell like a dropped curtain; shipowners, sailors, and merchants swallowed their words like pebbles.
When the blockade was set and the whale-sized liner settled onto the water, its wake fanning out like pale petals until the bay went calm, the company posted ads for escort guards all over the port like fresh posters after rain.
The Kingdom’s Five Grand Dukes’ knights, as if waiting like hounds on a scent, surged toward the docks like a wave, just as Lance had waited.
“On our honor as knights, we’ll guard the Celestial guests!” They formed lines like spear-rows at muster and shouted to the sky.
The company staff watched with smiles spreading like sunrise.
Imperial knights frowned, their brows furrowing like plowed fields, because they knew these youths, though tied to the Five Grand Dukes, were fresh-sealed lower knights like green wood.
No heavy hitters had come; to Imperial eyes, the Five remained half-loyal like reeds in shifting wind, yet they didn’t care, nor would they report, since the ship carried only rich, idle nobles like peacocks at leisure.
As the young lower knights queued, eagerness burning like campfires to win merit, an unwelcome figure strode in like a shadow across bright snow.
A boy whose strength and luck stirred envy like wasps stepped up with a royal token and cut the line like a knife.
“Lance Morrison, Blazing Fire Knight, representing House Doran, applying as escort.” He stood with a sincerity like a steady flame before Celestial Spirit’s staff and the Empire’s Caribbean Travel Company clerks.
“What, the Blazing Fire Knight?!” Staff gaped like fish, shock rippling through them like lightning over a lake.
He had beaten the Thunderlight Knight, a rising star, like stormfire outshining a spark, so in their eyes his power stood higher like a peak.
Joy burst from them like corks from bottles.
A Celestial Race man, skin and hair gray-white like ash and snow, with features cut sharp as carved stone, clasped Lance’s hands. “Excellent, Blazing Fire Knight. We’re glad to see you. The Empire will remember a loyal and mighty knight like you.”
The young knights left to the side bristled, their pride crackling like dry straw.
They’d already envied his path and power like dogs eyeing a bone, and his cutting the line left them gaping like statues; now he stole their hard-won chance like a hawk snatching a chick, so—
“Blazing Fire Knight, we challenge you!” they cried in a tangled chorus like a pack, blades rasping free like winter reeds.
Moments later they yelped and splashed, leaping into the water like boiled crabs to cool armor that burned like stoves, then spat back over their shoulders, “Remember this, damn you, Blazing Fire Knight!” and slogged off, to laughter rolling like breakers.
Their sulking retreat cleared the rocks from Lance’s path like a tide.
But the sudden drop in manpower tugged frowns across the staff like shadows at dusk.
“As you see, this luxury liner needs a lot of hands,” the manager said, voice careful as a tightrope, “and you drove them off like geese. Can you recruit for us in their place?”
